Every Saturday morning at Zack’s BBQ in Hotchkiss, Colorado, a dozen or more guys gather to laugh and relive stories over eggs and pancakes. Refilling the coffee cups of these North Fork Valley locals, the waitress no longer wonders why so many of their tales are set in Crested Butte. She knows by now that most of the diners are Crested Butte alumni whose friendships were forged in the ski town on the other side of Kebler Pass. They’re still connected to each other and to Crested Butte. As the saying goes, “Once a Buttian, always a Buttian.”
Over the last four decades, several dozen people have joined the trickle-migration from snowy Crested Butte to the lower, warmer North Fork Valley. Some gather often to tipple Paonia brews or swap vegetables from their burgeoning gardens. The ready-made transplant community was part of what drew them – along with backs weary from shoveling so much snow and the valley’s more affordable home prices and longer growing seasons. Though they’ve happily sunk roots into the valley’s fertile soil, they also know every curve of the Kebler Pass Road from frequent trips “back home” for favorite Crested Butte events or to visit family and friends.
David Inouye, a long-time Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory scientist and retired professor, recently moved near Paonia with his wife Bonnie. He often joins the breakfast circle at Zack’s, which inspired him to write the following article about his fellow Crested Butte alumni.
A handful of the young people who moved to Crested Butte 50-60 years ago are still residents in and near the town. When they arrived, the streets were still unpaved, the town relied on volunteers to help with problems like a frozen water line in winter, and things like parking and post office boxes were not an issue. Although life in a small mountain town was exciting and convivial, and the long, snowy winters brought excellent skiing, as the decades progressed the attraction of balmier climes sometimes called to this aging cohort. Instead of leaving Crested Butte just during the mud-season lull, some of those long-time residents were drawn to the warmer and dryer climate over Kebler Pass, in the valley of the North Fork of the Gunnison River.
The North Fork Valley has a long history as a major fruit-growing area and now boasts the state’s largest concentration of organic orchards, farms, and vineyards. The first fruit trees were planted in the 1880s, and in 1893 Paonia fruit won awards at the Chicago World’s Fair. The West Elks American Viticultural Area (AVA) that includes the North Fork Valley has some of the highest vineyards in North America and the some of the best Colorado wine. Between Paonia and Hotchkiss there are now at least a dozen vineyards and hard cider makers.
Many Crested Butte residents have made trips over Kebler Pass, through the coal-mining town of Somerset and past the big coal mines (only one is still active now), and on to Paonia to pick their own apricots, cherries, peaches, apples, pears, plums, and vegetables, or buy them from Big B’s Delicious Orchards, JJ’s Orchard, Orchard Valley Farms, or others. Produce from the North Fork also made its way to Crested Butte for many years in Doug Mattice’s van, which he parked near the four-way stop to sell his goods. He is missed now, having passed away a couple of years ago, but there’s still a sign for his business along the highway between Hotchkiss and Delta.
I got to know the North Fork Valley through family trips over the pass to pick or buy apricots and peaches during summers while I was working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (located in Gothic, eight miles from Crested Butte). When I retired from teaching at the University of Maryland, I wanted to live closer to Gothic, so my wife and I bought a house between Paonia and Hotchkiss. Though we aren’t far from Gothic by distance, the contrasts are dramatic. Now, instead of commuting on skis and living in snowbound Gothic in March, we watch our apricot trees flower; and we start planting peas in April here instead of in June in Gothic. The temperature is often 20 degrees (or more) warmer in Paonia than in Crested Butte, and it’s unusual to have more than four to six inches of snow on the ground in our yard, and then only for part of the winter.
When I join the Saturday breakfast group in Hotchkiss that is made up of mostly former Crested Butte residents, I realize how many people have made a similar decision to move from one side of Kebler Pass to the other.
Many houses in the Crested Butte area were built or renovated by contractors who now live in the North Fork Valley. Brothers and painting partners Tom and Frog Gifford made the move after many years as colorful CB characters. (Unfortunately, Frog died a few years ago, and many friends attended the memorial service held in Crested Butte.) Back before Crested Butte had a high school, Tom and his wife Jean LaTourette relocated to the North Fork Valley after their elder daughter reached high-school age, because they didn’t want her to have to ride the bus to Gunnison for school every day. Tony Zimmerman, Jim (Gemini) and Suzie Normandin, electrician Read Hunker and his wife Deb Cheeseman, and architect Bill Roseberry and his wife Evelyn, who used to teach elementary school in Crested Butte, now live near Paonia.
Nick Lypps, who 50 years ago opened the Soupçon restaurant in Crested Butte, discovered in Paonia the small-town vibe that he felt was fading in his former home. John and Mary Holder were attracted to the North Fork Valley by the ability to have a garden and a farm, and by the area’s strong sense of community. Other people said they relocated because of the valley’s more affordable real estate market, milder winters, and less crowded feeling.
Artists who have made the move to the North Fork Valley include Lucille Lucas, who had a Crested Butte gallery for many years and now has one in Paonia; Mary Jursinovic, who started the Creekside Pottery in Crested Butte in 1980 and stayed until rents got too high in 2006; and Lian Canty, whose Rendezvous Gallery operated in the Butte until 2019 and then moved to Paonia (but recently relocated to Oregon). Woodworker Bill Folger lived in Crested Butte for 26 years; he helped organize the first Crested Butte Arts Festival, was part of the Paragon Gallery artists’ cooperative, assisted in creating the carved pole in Totem Pole Park, served as a ski patrolman for Crested Butte Mountain Resort, and worked at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. In 1996 he and his wife Kerry were among the earlier CB residents to move to the North Fork Valley, where he now has his workshop near Hotchkiss. Kerry recounts that they identified 22 people they knew from Crested Butte who have moved to the North Fork Valley, and that’s partly what attracted them to the area.
A few businesses have also made the downhill migration. Mountain Oven has its origins in Crested Butte, where Chris Sullivan started baking in 2010, and its Elk Avenue coffee shop and bakery was a popular venue for several years. Chris, and later his partner Dana Whitcomb, ran the seven-day a week café, retail and wholesale bakery, and farm-to-table catering service, as well as attending two farmers markets. But to fulfill their desire to garden, Chris and Dana moved their business to Paonia in 2016, and by 2018 had opened their new wholesale bread and pastry business. They still have a presence in Crested Butte through their weekly participation in the Sunday Farmer’s Market, where their booth always draws a long line of customers. Much of the flour they use is now grown in the North Fork Valley and ground in their own mill at the Paonia bakery. The bakery’s Friday morning sale of its varied breads and pastries has become a local hit. There are now several other bakeries in the valley, too.
Many Crested Butte residents and visitors have fond memories of the Third Bowl ice cream shop, known for its many imaginative flavors, that was housed upstairs on Elk Avenue from 2012 to 2020. In 2020, owners Kendall Tanslersky and Matt Smith moved the production facility to Hotchkiss, just down the valley from Paonia, where many of the ingredients for their ice cream are sourced. Fortunately, their ice cream is still available in Crested Butte, at Tin Cup shops downtown and at the ski area and through other venues (including the visitor’s center in Gothic).
At our Saturday breakfasts, I realize “over the hill” might describe the age cohort of many former Crested Butte residents who now live in the North Fork Valley. But we like to interpret that more literally – as living on the other side of Kebler Pass, in our lower-altitude wonderland.